Have you considered picture rails?


>Dear All
>
>We are currently in the midst of the restoration of a Carnegie Library
>building to serve as an extension to our museum. One of the rooms in
>this building will become a gallery for hosting temporary and travelling
>exhibitions. It was intended to line the walls of this gallery with Gib.
>board to enable us to hang artworks. However I have now been told that
>it is too expensive to proceed with batoning and lining the external
>gallery walls. The plastered brickwork will be repaired and painted but
>will remain unlined.
>
>I feel uncomfortable about this decision for two main reasons:
>
>1. I fear a potential condensation problem on these unlined external
>walls.
>2. I foresee potential difficulties in hanging paintings on the walls
>without being allowed to hammer some form of hanger or fastener into the
>plaster and being able to reposition hangers/fasteners for each new
>exhibition without damaging the plasterwork.
>
>If anyone has experienced similar difficulties and has some advice to
>offer regarding the hanging of exhibitions in galleries with plastered
>external walls please e-mail me directly or enter into a discussion via
>the list if appropriate.
>
>There may be a simple solution which I, as a museum person with limited
>art gallery experience, am overlooking. And which won't send the
>restoration budget into a spin and cause the contractor to have an
>embolism. I live in hope anyway.
>
>Peter Read
>Senior Museum Assistant
>West Coast Historical Museum, Hokitika, New Zealand
>e-mail: [log in to unmask]
>All opinions expressed herein are my own.
>"Study the past if you would divine the future" - Confucius

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